Three by Millay IV

Poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Song

Gone, gone again is Summer the lovely,
   She that knew not where to hide,
Is gone again like a jeweled fish from the hand,
   Is lost on every side.

Mute, mute, I make my way to the garden,
   Thither where she last was seen;
The heavy foot of the frost is on the flags there,
   Where her light step has been.

Gone, gone again is Summer the lovely,
   Gone again on every side,
Lost again like a shining fish from the hand
   Into the shadowy tide.

(from The Buck in the Snow)

Autumn Chant

Now the autumn shudders
   In the rose's root.
Far and wide the ladders
   Lean among the fruit.

Now the autumn clambers
   Up the trellised frame,
And the rose remembers
   The dust from which it came.

Brighter than the blossom
   On the rose's bough
Sits the wizened, orange,
   Bitter berry now;

Beauty never slumbers;
   All is in her name;
But the rose remembers
   The dust from which it came.

(from The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems)

God's World

O world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
   Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!
   Thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with colour! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, World, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
      But never knew I this;
      Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart,—Lord, I do fear
Thou'st made the world too beautiful this year.
My soul is all but out of me,—let fall
No burning leaf; prithee, let no bird call.

(from Renascence)

Collected Poems (1956), ed. Norma Millay, pp. 208, 152, 32.

See also Three by Millay III: Three sonnets by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 10/24/04 11:07:31 AM
Categorized as Literary & Sunday Poetry Series.